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According to at least two of the four women's clothing catalogs that came in the mail yesterday, I am already closer to a size 8 (Coldwater Creek: 36"-30 1/2"-39", their size S; Simply Be: 37"-30"-38", their smallest size) than I thought I was. Which is funny, because according to the size chart that I have been using for the past twenty years (Tweeds), I am still much closer to a 12 (38"-29 1/2"-40 1/2") than even a 10 (36 1/2"-28"-39"). Of course, Coldwater Creek caters primarily to women of a certain age (they also include Women's sizes), and Simply Be starts at size 8 and goes up to size 32 (61"-54"-62"), but I am still smaller (size-wise) than I thought I was even according to Athleta (8-10 36-37" 29-30" 38 1/2-39 1/2", their medium) and, lo and behold, Venus (10 37 1/2"-29"-40", their larger medium).* Mind you, I still look more like the models in Simply Be, but ho…

Yes, yes, I know, it's getting boring. Yet another post about the wonders of a low-carb diet. But if you had good news, wouldn't you want to spread it? My husband just smiles and rolls his eyes now whenever I start waxing evangelical: "I feel so good! Look, I can fit into my jeans again! I'm eating real food! I have been able to distinguish cravings from hunger!" And so forth.

I could go on. Maybe I should. Maybe this is too important not to post about over and over and over again. Because, you see, I have found salvation. Okay, maybe not in the way that we usually understand the word in English, but you have to forgive me, I'm too used to thinking in Latin. And in Latin, the word that is typically translated "salvation" (salus) also means "health." I wonder why? Oh, right, because in Latin, or, rather, in proper Christian Latin, the salvation of the soul goes hand in hand with the health of the body. Healing involves, rat…

Okay, so that's a slightly blasphemous title, but I don't know quite how else to give this post the force that it needs. Because, you see, I had an insight on Sunday after I wrote that post about not being enough of a bitch while I was on my way to the strip for my pools. But you'll have to bear with me for a moment here, because it was one of those insights that, when it hits you, turns your whole world inside out after which, suddenly, you are looking at things with whole new eyes, typically weeping for joy. (How's that for a teaser?) And then the moment passes and you spend the next day or so too involved in life (fencing, talking with friends, driving home, recovering from the fencing and the talking and the driving) to be able to write about it, by which time (i.e. now) the full force of the insight has faded and all you are left with is the conviction that it is absolutely vital that you write about what you saw because therein lies the salvation of the world…

I shouldn't even been trying to write right now, my head hurts so much, but you know me, always a glutton for punishment. Why? Why do I do this to myself? Don't answer that, there isn't really an answer. All I know is...all I know is that I fenced really well yesterday, better than I've fenced almost ever...and I still lost. Worse. I didn't just lose, I was destroyed. By an opponent whom I was beating until the very last touch. But she got inside my head and I just couldn't shake her. And then, afterwards, when I was talking to my friend Ed and he was asking, "What do you think happened?" (luckily, he was there on the side of the strip encouraging me during the bout, so he saw), I was just too embarrassed to be able to say. But now I think that I can. She wore me down. She got inside my head and wore me down. And I let her. I let her. Why?

I just posted this status on Facebook: "I don't think that I am nasty enough to be any goo…

It's working! It's working, it's working, it's working! You know how I know? Because I can fit into my fencing knickers without having to tug! Even better, I can fit into the heavy ones that I wear for epee that don't have any give. I can't wait to try on my stretchy ones for foil tomorrow.

But, first, I need to write. Something. Anything to clear my head for the competition today. I am sorry that my bear's brain seems to be running to nothing but diet; my human brain has been carrying around all sorts of other thoughts these past couple of months. But somehow when I sit down to write here, all I can think of is, "Carbs!"

It is a persistent demon. I can't say that I have been having cravings, but I have had regular nightmares the past week or so in which I find myself eating something that is not on my diet at the moment (if, perhaps, ever, now that I understand the effect that the sugars and starches have on me). It's odd, becau…

It occurs to me, at the end of a sleepy day spent translating Walter of Wimborne's Ave Virgo Mater Christi (watch this space) and marking final exercises in rhetoric, that...I'm very sleepy. Okay, so the point of trying to write right now was to take advantage of the few minutes that I have before going to practice to get in a "brief, daily session" of writing as per Robert Boice's excellent advice, but this is what tends to happen when I write when I'm tired: gibberish. Or maybe I am just wonderfully low on carbs at the moment so I am finding it hard to concentrate. No, I'm tired, and need to take another piece of Prof. Boice's advice and stop now before I work myself into tizzy. Because, see, I have done a fair amount of work today, not a lot, not loads, but some, just as much as I promised myself I should do. And now I want to stop and eat carbs. No, I didn't say that. I don't really, but I recognize the symptoms. I'm tired. I …

I spent the past two days at a conference in honor of one of my most beloved colleagues, surrounded by good conversation, good friends, and lots and lots of--you guessed it--carbs. It was hard, not in that grim, nail-biting way that counting calories tends to be, but in the sense of having voluntarily to excuse oneself from the party. "No, thanks," I had to keep saying to myself as I walked past the mounds of muffins and croissants and cookies and M&Ms, "I'm fasting."

And, indeed, I had been worried about this past week, what with the entertaining and traveling I was going to have to do. I even succumbed on Wednesday and went and bought some Atkins bars. For which, I have to say, I was very grateful on Friday and Saturday, when I might have been tempted to self-medicate against the anxiety of being among so many colleagues, students, and friends. But, I am happy to report, I didn't (succumb, that is), and according to the tape measure and my "…

I hate 'em.* Always able to wear whatever they want without having to worry about showing their knees. Going through life oblivious to the shame of not being able to fit into their jeans. Slender, powerful, desirable, loved. Never having to worry about what they eat because somehow their bodies simply don't accumulate excess fat. Flashing their legs as they stride past you in their skinny boots, skinny dresses, skin-tight jeans. Or, worse, slinking past in their flowing skirts which they wear simply because they enjoy the sensation of fabric moving over their legs, not because they are trying to hide anything, like, say, their knees.

Did I say I hate 'em? All my life, they've been there, in their seventies peasant blouses, in their eighties business suits, in their nineties mini-skirts: mocking me with their knees, their waistlines, their ability to wear shorts without shame. Every so often, I managed to catch up with them momentarily, but I always knew I was a…

"And often those who are overly silent, when they suffer some injustice, develop a greater pain because they do not speak about what they endure. For if their tongues spoke calmly about what they suffered, the pain would fade from the consciousness. For wounds that are enclosed are more painful. But when the pain that burns internally is released, the wound is opened for healing. They should know, therefore, that they aggravate the seriousness of their pain by withholding all speech when they become annoyed. They are to be advised, therefore, that if they love their neighbors as themselves, they should not keep silent about the things that justly deserve censure. For by the medicine of the voice, both parties can receive healing: for the one who inflicted the harm, his evil actions are checked, and the one who sustained the pain is relieved by releasing his wound."

--St. Gregory the Great, The Book of Pastoral Care, trans. George E. Demacopoulos (Crestwood, NY: St. Vla…

“You grasp my soul, and topple my enemies with it. And what is our soul? A splendid weapon it may be, long, sharp, oiled, and coruscating with the light of wisdom as it is brandished. But what is this soul of ours worth, what is it capable of, unless God holds it and fights with it? Any sword, however beautifully made, lies idle if there is no warrior to take it up.... So God does whatever he wishes with our soul. Since it is in his hand, it is his to use as he will." -- Augustine of Hippo, Exposition of Psalm 34 (35),trans. Maria Boulding, O.S.B.

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“The best way to pray is: stop. Let prayer pray within you whether you know it or not. This means a deep awareness of your true inner identity.... By grace we are Christ. Our relationship with God is that of Christ to the Father in the Holy Spirit." -- Father Louis, alias Thomas Merton